Rebound by Cardinal Robbins
by Cardinal Robbins
Summary: John Munch lay in near total darkness, his shades still on, his heart almost completely shattered. He was stretched out on the sofa in his small apartment, listlessly hearing jazz music filter through his despair. SVU AU


"Rebound"

by Cardinal Robbins

John Munch lay in near total darkness, his shades still on, his heart almost completely shattered. He was stretched out on the sofa in his small apartment, listlessly hearing jazz music filter through his despair.

Busted. She'd found out.

He hadn't meant for the night to end as it had. He hadn't counted on her investigative skills or that she'd deigned to go mining in the Maryland Department of Public Records. But there it was: A divorce decree that post-dated when they'd met. When they'd made love for the first time.

John Munch had withheld evidence. He'd made a flippant remark. He'd been caught.

They argued until she cried, after which he'd left.

Just…

Left.

Even though it was his fault, because he hadn't wanted to tell her he wasn't divorced quite yet. Technically, he was still married to Number Four, and their battle had morphed far beyond acrimonious and into absolutely nasty. He had needed her, feeling the loneliness of the rebound, aching to reconnect to someone, somehow.

And thus the problem.

He had forgotten she was spiritual, at times even religious. It had slipped his mind that he caused her to break a Commandment, making her an inadvertent adulteress. He hadn't mentioned she was sharing her bed with a still-married man. To learn the truth at this point cut her deeply. She had gone against God for him, and for what? A few hours' pleasure? He knew she'd looked at his hands, checked for the wedding band or an indentation on his left ring finger, not realizing he never wore one.

She hadn't asked. She had trusted him.

He had failed her.

He didn't want the distinction of a ring after the first two marriages. He preferred to be free of such antiquated notions. Besides, in a Judaic ceremony only the bride wore a ring, he reminded himself. It wasn't his fault that nothing advertised his marital status. She should have known, he insisted to his conscience, because she was also Jewish. The small voice in his soul shouted back at him, reminded him he had lied…by withholding the truth.

The worst kind of deception.

The silence ate at his mind. There was no phone ringing with an apology at the other end, uttered by a soft voice and warm heart. No sound of gentle singing, as flesh was bared for imminent pleasure. Nothing but cold, hard silence, save for the scratch of the turntable's needle at the end of a vinyl record. Needle against label, scratching, a distant sound that was as harsh as the silence.

He had hurt her and he was sorry. Sorrier still that he was now alone.

That he had left.

That he was feeling hot, wet traces down his cheeks.

So was she, despite the fact they were two blocks and one world away.

She sobbed quietly into her pillow, wondering how she could have been so careless. Wondering if he would have told her the truth, had she asked him. Confused, because she thought he was caring, considerate. All the right attributes, or so she'd thought.

Her crying stopped long enough for a prayer, to ask forgiveness for something she considered heinous. A sin against her God, who only asked that she keep ten simple requests sacred. She had tried so hard, but then she met John Munch and her resolve had folded. She hadn't known he was still married, hadn't known he didn't wear the tell-tale band that would have brought her – brought them – to a halt.

Could she have stopped herself? Could she have stayed true to the one before John, who had shared her joys and sorrows for five years, who had decided to walk a different path without her? Could she have resisted the cosmic pull of the rebound?

No. She heard the voice in her soul and it had distinctly reiterated, "No."

There was no one to give her absolution, to resolve the cold reality that she had sinned. She had slept with a married man, despite a near-lifetime of trying to avoid doing exactly that. Most compelling of all, he hadn't said a word. He had plied her deepest desires, satisfying everything she craved – attention, love, physical pleasure, and so much more.

She had fallen.

Once the hard questions were asked, he had become indignant, infuriated, sarcastic and cynical. And then he had…left.

Walked out. Without another word.

Gone.

Personally and professionally he walked away from everything they shared. Everything they'd built over the past six years. Everything they'd loved, especially each other. He had walked out on all of that and everything in between.

In their separate worlds, they mourned their loss. Alone. Silent. Tearful.

Both gradually drifted off, into uneasy sleep punctuated by grief.

John reached out and found no one there. No soft flesh to yield beneath his touch. He was without the woman who'd shared his bed, shared his soul and made him thrilled to be alive. She wasn't there. Only darkness filled his arms through the night.

In her world, she clung to a pillow and awoke with tears drying in her dark eyes. He was lost to her, leaving the cool night air to take his place.

It was 3:30 in the morning when, both under the same blanket of stars in a city that never slept, the phone rang.

She picked up the receiver and listened, expecting Odafin's voice to coax her out of misery's grasp and into the rain-slicked streets.

"Sarah?" he asked, the voice raspy and haggard, roughened by tears and regret.

"Yes, John?" she replied, her voice resigned, weary, despondent.

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

"Do you think you could forgive me?"

A pause.

An eternity.

An answer whispered into the darkness.

"Yes. "


End file.
